Markos Moulitsas: Right-wing recidivism

Today, let’s go on a quick, abridged tour through one week of right-wing craziness.

We’ll start with Republicans trying to bring “compassionate conservative” back: “If 2012 was a contest to be the toughest, the 2016 presidential Republican primary is likely to include a competition to appear the most compassionate,” declared The Washington Post, as if Republican efforts to rebrand weren’t a running joke.

ADVERTISEMENT

The conservative media won’t be on board, though. Just look at the geniuses on “Fox & Friends,” lamenting 911 calls from Spanish speakers in emergencies: “So those calls, you have to respond to, even though for the most part, when you get there, you realize, they’re not even American citizens?” asked host Brian Kilmeade, as if saving a life was predicated on having the right passport.

Meanwhile, at a town hall hosted by Texas state Rep. David Simpson, base Republicans were even less interested in any notion of compassion. “These people are not coming in with a good, Christian heart. Most of them are criminals, anyway,” said one attendee about Catholic refugee children fleeing violence back home. “These kids have scabies and influenza, viral pneumonia, leprosy … they are bleeding Texas [Democrat] blue,” said another.

Speaking of bleeding, consider an official National Rifle Association video arguing for mandatory universal gun training: “Gun policy driven by our need for guns would insist that we introduce young people to guns early and that we’d give them the skills to use firearms safely. Just like we teach them reading and writing, necessary skills. We would teach shooting and firearm competency. It wouldn’t matter if they didn’t want to learn. We would make it necessary to advance to the next grade.” Oh, and the government would foot the bill — because if small government stands for anything, it’s funding creepy gun fetishes.

How about some science bashing? Chief creationist Ken Ham called for elimination of the space program because it’s an affront to his god. “I do believe there can’t be other intelligent beings in outer space because of the meaning of the gospel,” he wrote on his site. But if there are in fact aliens, they’re damned for all time! “You see, the Bible makes it clear that Adam’s sin affected the whole universe. This means that any aliens would also be affected by Adam’s sin, but because they are not Adam’s descendants, they can’t have salvation.” Probably best not to find the damned souls, NASA.

Did I mention that, among Republicans, belief in creationism is increasing? According to Pew polling, only 43 percent of Republicans believe in evolution, compared to 54 percent in 2009. It’s ironic — they’re actually devolving.

Let’s not forget the Wall Street crowd, like this future Nobel laureate complaining about the lack of new construction workers: “Labor is scarce. As the housing crisis dragged on, the workers that builders relied on found jobs in other industries, including the energy sector,” said the chief economist of the National Association of Home Builders. “It’s been tough luring those workers back.”

I’ve got a pretty easy way to lure tradespeople back to construction, but “raising wages” has long since left Big Business’s lexicon. If they could outsource construction to India, they would’ve done it years ago.

And that’s just another week in the saga of conservatism’s long sail away from the American mainstream. They’re out there on the horizon, and aren’t turning back.